Friday, April 14, 2017

We Forget

We forget that
this is an oral, public, epideictic literature dedicated to the single purpose of
eulogizing men and communities; that these eulogies are concentrated upon
athletic achievement; that the environment thus created is hostile to an
allusiveness that would strain the powers of a listening audience, hostile to
personal, religious, political, philosophical and historical references that might interest the poet but do nothing to enhance the glory of a given patron, hostile to
abruptness in transitions, to gross irrelevance, to lengthy sermonizing, to literary
scandals and embarrassments, hostile in short to all the characteristics of style and
temper that we ascribe to Pindar.